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 gently caress THOSE SLINGERSSSS Crave historical RPG action? Enjoy simulating the slow-rear end simulation of a young hastati conscript into a bona fide Roman Hero, primarily through going to the gym, playing dice and dodging slinger insurgents? Participating in the historical campaigns under Scipio Africanus and  Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1058430/A_Legionarys_Life/ (Here can also be found A FREE DEMO HOLY poo poo !!SHIFT+!1) Pros: - Historicity - Interesting take on the rogue hero trainer, showing a lot of camp life and 'third soldier from the right' play - Decent and often challenging combat system - Investing characters development, with moral choices paying off later and as his deeds grow. Cons: - RNG hell in the truest sense of the word. You can be really good, but if that libyan spear wants your dick, no amount of preparation will change it. That's not to say you can't get good at playing the combat mini-game, so study and perseverence does pay off. - Railroady campaign. The progression and events in the battles are the same, but hopefully some DLC is gonna show up down the line. - Time eater. I'm still kind of a noob that can't make it past the Africa campaign, but I thought I'd move the discussion here, as it's mucking up the ancient history thread. Good posts from there: Basics: Most of the campaigns take place in camp, oiling your muscles and scrounging a working a surcoat for protecting your scrotum. Primary tasks include Bulking up All your attributes are important to stay abreast of your enemies in the war chapters and the random battle events you get in camp. Awareness, Charisma and Intellect can also be trained, but not intentionally and also only rarely. Starting above 50 in mentals is advisable, and a high awareness helps a lot in war actions. Note that a low intelligence will benefit you directly, in that sacrifices to the gods are much more likely to give big morale boosts, and also to not lose morale in certain events where people poo poo on you. I personally don't think it's attractive, as there's a lot of story arc type actions that check your intelligence. The -important- bit to remember is to crosstrain. If you train sword two times, triggering over-exertion stress is a lot more likely than if you train sword-swimming. You can set together chains of the training you need the most, just don't boost one type repeatedly. Morale is important, and losing it it will probably mean dying in the next combat. Maintaining relationships Doing extra guard shifts and volunteering for patrols may net you an increase in standing with the troop and the centurion. This is important for a variety of reasons, including gaining promotions and finding veteran soldiers to spar with (which is required as soon as your solo training gives you mediocre weapon skills). Actions that give you better relations can give morale (playing dice and hanging out) and worse morale (guard duty, patrols), and so need to be undertaken with morale managements in mind. Barter and sale Once a month or so you get paid, and you can get extra money by gambling. You will also gain gear and denarii by participating in the war chapter, or fighting folks in the supply mini-game or doing patrols. You can search for items to equip yourself with in camp, and each visit gives new items to buy, so if you need something in particular try refreshing. Every visit still drains a turn though, so don't dawdle too much. Good early purchases would be greaves (your groin is weak and stabbable, plan accordingly), a medium sword and better helmet. The linen cuirass is a decent starter armor as it stops a lot of blows, particularly with less armour-penetrating weapons. Supply mini-game This charming 90's graphics swathed romp through ambushes and angry ancient axe-wielding peasants needs a word or two attached: It seems nigh-impossible to get enough supplies and return on time, but there's a trick to it: You can use the right mouse-button to view the entire map at the start, and this will reveal where villages are located. Each village contains a whole sack of supplies, so visiting each of them will fill up your entire supply meter. (Note that this is still ALL, so they will be shock full of axeman mobs, wailing elders and other people who try to dick you out of your well-deserved glory fuel) Combat and War: ((Thanks Titanopteryx )) There is 2 kinds of combat, endurance and timed. Endurance is lasting some number of turns against infinite enemies while timed are fights against a finite amount of enemies and if you beat them fast you gain opinion and morale. In endurance fights over time, right around turn 20ish, the centurian will rotate the line and the enemy will be replaced with a new one but your blue stance circle will be refilled and you'll regain 1 level of fatigue. If you get promoted to centurion then you can skip being rotated and gain opinion and morale, but your enemy will still be replaced. Or you can go ahead and rotate out but you'll lose opinion and morale. The image is of the battle screen. On the left and right you can see your and the enemy's blue stance circle, red health circle, and the fatigue bar underneath. You can also see what they have equipped. This militia man has no armor so torso hits will have full effect. If he were to have armor I might attack his arms which never seem to have any coverage from any equipment. Under my stats on the left you see the attitude bar. This effects what stance you're in. The red side is aggressive while the blue side is defensive. When in the defensive your accuracy goes down and your defense goes up. So both sides will be less accurate. If you take the defensive stance to the left side then you lose morale each turn. Not right away, but if you stay defensive for too long then you'll start to. It's best used when trying to recover or towards turn 19 or so in endurance fight when you're just trying to coast to the end. On the red aggressive side your attacks are more accurate but so are the enemy's. It would be best to not be aggressive in endurance fights and possibly spend the whole time feinting so you don't kill the enemy and replace him with one with full fatigue. Meanwhile if you keep feinting and don't kill him he'll become more fatigued and be less likely to hit you. This gets hindered when the centurion rotates you. However every kill you get helps boost your end score so it depends of whether you're an optimist or a pessimist. Do you want do die after the enemy or do you want him to die before you? In timed battles you need to go full red. Down at the bottom you see the actions you can take. Under attack you see the various body parts and some thumbs. At the bottom you can toggle between body parts and damage multipliers on that body part. There are 2 thumbs for each attack. H is hit chance. When it's fully up you have the highest chance to hit. When it's fully down you have the lowest chance to hit. A is the attack's chance to bypass armor. Armor has coverage. The coverage on a body part is the chance the armor will block damage to that part. he damage blocked is shown on the armor's info in your inventory screen. After damage passes that threshold the rest of the damage is applied normally. Next is feints. There are 3 feints with 2 thumbs each. The thumb on the left is whether the feint succeeds. The thumb on the right is whether it bypasses their resistance. Shield is more effective feints but if you miss you lose stance yourself. The thumbs are the same as feints. Respite and recover restore fatigue and stance respectively. Soft spot is a different form of attack where your chance to bypass an armor's coverage is increased but your chance to hit is decreased. It doesn't work if the opponent's armor has 100 coverage. Tias fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Dec 12, 2019 |
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Oct 29, 2019 10:01
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Good game. I tried the demo before the full release and thought the biggest flaw was that the combat was a slog, consisting of 90% feinting so you could get the occasional hit in. Gave it another go and figured out that's not how you're supposed to play even though it'll always be slow-paced.Tias posted:- Railroady campaign. The progression and events in the battles are the same, but hopefully some DLC is gonna show up down the line. The perspective on events differs differs depending on what rank you attain. Maybe not each one but I was a centurion posterior on my first complete run and I'm sure that plays out differently than being a lowly grunt.
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Oct 29, 2019 12:02
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True, true. I kinda like it because that's actually how legionaries were trained to fight. Respite also makes more sense because the harder fights are so stand-offish.
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Oct 29, 2019 12:43
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I asked in the other thread and I'll ask again here, what does it take to be the first over the walls in city assaults? I just cleared the defenders in <20 rounds with a successful roll for the troops helping and still wasn't first. Do you have to get perfect length ladders as well? Or somehow kill the defenders even faster? I'm not sure how that's even possible, I used mostly headshots and never missed a swing e: google gives me guys saying they got it after taking ~38 rounds to clear the defenders, wtf Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Oct 29, 2019 |
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Oct 29, 2019 13:37
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Wafflecopper posted:I asked in the other thread and I'll ask again here, what does it take to be the first over the walls in city assaults? I just cleared the defenders in <20 rounds with a successful roll for the troops helping and still wasn't first. Do you have to get perfect length ladders as well? Or somehow kill the defenders even faster? I'm not sure how that's even possible, I used mostly headshots and never missed a swing Not sure I've gotten one mural crown so far. Perfect ladders, help from the other legionaries and killing the defenders fairly quick worked for me. Definitely took longer than 20 rounds tho.
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Oct 29, 2019 14:54
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Yeah I got one now on the second siege in Macedonia. Took a little longer but I got good rolls on the ladders this time. No help from my cowardly troops but turns out I didn't need them. Also just one-shotted the Agema Chiliarch with a javelin to the neck
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Oct 29, 2019 15:17
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Tias posted:scrounging a working pair of greaves to protect your groin That's uhhh... not how greaves work You can get chainmail that gives some groin and arm protection Tias posted:Supply mini-game Huh? It's actually really really easy unless you get bad rolls. Avoid going through hills and forests where possible and only gather from full bags and you can't really go wrong. It's really hard to gently caress this up Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Oct 29, 2019 |
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Oct 29, 2019 15:45
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Mea culpa, I got a little too caught up in my dick energies there! And yeah, it's legs that start without protection. Anyway, a lot of folks have complained that the supplies mini-game is hard, and I couldn't complete it before I got the above tips, so I think I'll keep it in.
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Oct 29, 2019 15:49
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Oh yeah sure I'm not saying take it out, it just seems weird to me. I've done a shitload and only ever failed once. The game tells you about scrolling the first time you get one. Something else it tells you which isn't mentioned in the OP is that if you see partial bags on unmarked tiles as you're running around it means there's a full one nearby. Generally the fuller the partial bags the closer the full one but it's a little randomised.
Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Oct 29, 2019 |
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Oct 29, 2019 15:54
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You can also find tiles with hunting or fishing in while foraging. success depends on throwing and a bunch of other stats. I never had that much of a problem with the foraging minigame except once or twice when I was too kind to the villagers twice and then got hosed by the RNG.
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Oct 29, 2019 16:06
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Also a bit about training. You can do solo training, sparring, and workouts twice each per camp without pushing up your "over-exercise stress" bar, so definitely make sure you use those free trainings each camp. Each time after that the bar will increase. If the bar is in the green you will never lose morale, once it's yellow you will lose 1 morale each time you push it higher, 2 once it's red, probably more if you push it further. So you can focus stats without losing morale by training until you hit yellow, then doing some other non-training activities (usually I spam dice since over time it will raise your morale and troop rep) until it's empty, then training up to yellow again, etc. imo it's okay to lose a little bit of morale to push your stats a bit higher, it recovers pretty quickly by getting kills and from various story and camp events. Don't overdo it though. Personally I almost never bother with extra patrol/guard duty. You get plenty of rep just by playing the game and killing stuff. That camp time is better spent training imo. Speaking of kills, and with regards to combat being a slog, that changes as you fill up your graveyard. Once you have enough dead guys to start with better gear and stats, it becomes a lot easier to get kills without playing super conservatively with respite and feint, at least against weaker opponents anyway. If you're up against elite troops or dueling then you'll still need to be more careful. Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Oct 29, 2019 |
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Oct 29, 2019 16:23
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Ok I've retired a few dudes and even had one become a senator. Has anyone managed to chop through a phalanx to other side? How??
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Oct 29, 2019 20:40
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How important are stats? I’ve been using all my points (and rerolling a lot to get high #s). It does seem to make my guy better at combat , but I still can never beat a phalanx in that pushing match crap. How many games do you have to do anyway in order to get enough points for that starting sword expert perk? physeter posted:Ok I've retired a few dudes and even had one become a senator. Has anyone managed to chop through a phalanx to other side? How?? Woah, how? My guy always ends up a farmer no matter what I do.
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Oct 29, 2019 22:00
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Managed to slash my way through the phalanx. Getting lucky, tiring the phalanx and only using slash, no pushing or evade, with that special iron sword. I was a centurion so I could keep fighting all the time, that way you can wear down the phalanx health through several combats.
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Oct 29, 2019 22:13
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Delthalaz posted:Woah, how? My guy always ends up a farmer no matter what I do. You need at least one civic crown (I think more makes it easier, I got a senator with two crowns but not one, although the text suggests it’s possible with one) and have to pass a charisma+intellect roll Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Oct 30, 2019 |
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Oct 30, 2019 00:25
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I managed to break through the phalanx! You then get to fight a huge horde of bad at fighting but heavily armored dudes and then you get pushed back into your line. E. I just retired as a respected military veteran.
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Oct 30, 2019 14:11
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Game's a ton of fun. However ther combat can get a little repetitive. I had my, like, fifth? guy have some sort of freak runway success with only like 300 points to spend on character creation. Somehow he managed to win every duel, beating a barbarian chief, the Bulwark, and the nimble Macedonian champion by just waiting until they fatigued out, and then knocking them over and slitting their necks. He managed to win the 1v5 fight where you go save your skirmishers and hack through the Phalanx, uphill. I kept taking insane risks expecting to die but then having it pay off. He got promoted to Centurian, and then retired to be a happy farmer. The next four guys didn't get past the first campaign so I guess he was somehow blessed by the RNG.
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Nov 1, 2019 00:41
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Man, lesson learned: Do not sleep on Charisma, it's probably one of the most important stats. I skimped on it because I got a bunch of good rolls otherwise, and paid the price hard for a simple reason: Charisma determines whether your troop reputation increases or decreases when playing games. Having below-average charisma meant that most of the time I ended up losing or barely breaking even on reputation when playing games to reduce overtraining stress. That, in turn, meant I didn't get access to better sparring until way too late, which in turn meant my battle record was mediocre, which meant no promotions, and so on. For comparison, in my best run (which incidentally had high charisma) I had sword and shield skills 70 halfway during the second campaign. In this one, I never even broke 60 until I got murked sometime in the third campaign.
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Nov 2, 2019 00:21
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I had a dude get the civic crown but get killed by the Macedonian champ This would make a really good mobile game.
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Nov 2, 2019 05:38
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Agree that this would make a really good mobile game. By the way there's a combat speed setting. You should immediately set it to Fast, there's basically no reason not to. MuffiTuffiWuffi fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Nov 3, 2019 |
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Nov 3, 2019 03:51
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I got super lucky one run- got 3 civic crowns, the mural crown, the special magic ingot sword - and i broke through 2 phalanxes in the final run. But idk what happened, I didn’t kill enough of them or didn’t have high enough other stat or some poo poo- didn’t get a special ending. We were pushed back. How hard are the Thracian giant and those elite vanguard soldiers near the end? I’ve been too chicken to face them even when my dude is op.
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Nov 3, 2019 06:13
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your guy could probably have taken them
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Nov 3, 2019 06:27
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Delthalaz posted:I got super lucky one run- got 3 civic crowns, the mural crown, the special magic ingot sword - and i broke through 2 phalanxes in the final run. But idk what happened, I didn’t kill enough of them or didn’t have high enough other stat or some poo poo- didn’t get a special ending. We were pushed back. Did you just break the phalanx, or did you break the Phalanx and then kill all 5 of the enemies after you broke it? If you just break the phalanx but don't kill everybody the phalanx will reform, but if you break it and then kill everybody you get a different result. It's real hard to break it and also kill everybody unless you get very lucky or took the sword perk at the beginning of the game. The Thracian giant is probably killable but dangerous if you were on path to break the Phalanx. The elite vanguard soldier duel is possibly the hardest fight in the game, though, so...probably a good idea not to fight him. Also what's the special magic ingot sword?
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Nov 3, 2019 08:45
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There's a random encounter where you can attack a caravan and loot a special iron ingot, which gets made into what is by far the strongest sword I've seen in multiple completed runs.
Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Nov 3, 2019 |
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Nov 3, 2019 09:19
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What's the best way to get to spar against good opponents? Just play tons of dice?
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Nov 3, 2019 10:45
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I'm starting to get better guys because of higher point scores (and good phys+charisma start stats), but I've yet to complete the second campaign. What am I doing wrong 
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Nov 3, 2019 10:46
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Tias posted:I'm starting to get better guys because of higher point scores (and good phys+charisma start stats), but I've yet to complete the second campaign. What am I doing wrong Where do you die? I've never had much trouble with the second part unless I got really unlucky with RNG or I did something stupid.
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Nov 3, 2019 12:16
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Fader Movitz posted:Where do you die? I've never had much trouble with the second part unless I got really unlucky with RNG or I did something stupid. Usually on the first hill fort against the libyan spearmen. Also, often, against barbarians on patrol
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Nov 3, 2019 12:36
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Tias posted:Usually on the first hill fort against the libyan spearmen. Also, often, against barbarians on patrol Yeah, those guys tend to be fairly dangerous the first time around. However, that one is purely an endurance fight where you only have to survive 20-odd rounds, so there's really nothing keeping you from going on the defensive and just sticking with Respite-ing a bunch if no opening presents itself. Also, see about getting yourself some chainmail by that point if at all possible (a short one can be found for ~650 Denarii). It makes you borderline immune to torso/groin attacks, meaning you only really have to deal with arm/leg attacks, which is a huge boost to your survivability.
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Nov 3, 2019 14:17
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MORE TAXES WHEN posted:Did you just break the phalanx, or did you break the Phalanx and then kill all 5 of the enemies after you broke it? If you just break the phalanx but don't kill everybody the phalanx will reform, but if you break it and then kill everybody you get a different result. It's real hard to break it and also kill everybody unless you get very lucky or took the sword perk at the beginning of the game. Ahh I’ve been able to break the Phalanx formation but not kill 5 dudes. They don’t give you much time! It keeps running out before I can get them all.
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Nov 3, 2019 17:43
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Another question: Do we know exactly how the dead/retired guy to creation point increase mechanism works? I feel as though I've had a lot of dead guys now, but it doesn't go above 373 points. It seems like I got an increase when I retired one, but the dead jobbers don't seem to give additional points.
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Nov 3, 2019 18:05
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Tias posted:Another question: Do we know exactly how the dead/retired guy to creation point increase mechanism works? I feel as though I've had a lot of dead guys now, but it doesn't go above 373 points. It seems like I got an increase when I retired one, but the dead jobbers don't seem to give additional points. I don't know exactly but it works off some kind of average, adjusted so that you never lose points for adding additional deaths. The board only actually keeps the top 20. In order to increase it, you need to have a character whose score is higher than the score of ther guy he replaces. If you ever get a runaway run where a guy does really well you'll see a drastic increase in your points available. Or if you just want to juice your score a bit you can try to retire a few people after the first campaign, to knock off some of the 0 score guys at the bottom. That probably won't work super well but at least it'll be something.
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Nov 3, 2019 18:18
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Biggus Dickus died from a stab in the dick in the first fight of the first campaign.
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Nov 4, 2019 23:37
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ColonelDimak posted:Biggus Dickus died from a stab in the dick in the first fight of the first campaign. There is no escaping the libyan nutspear
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Nov 5, 2019 09:22
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Once I've bought some chainmail, is there anything much else to spend additional money on? Just searching the market in the camp doesn't offer anything better than the sword and greaves I got in the first campaign...
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Nov 5, 2019 11:21
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The Lone Badger posted:Once I've bought some chainmail, is there anything much else to spend additional money on? Just searching the market in the camp doesn't offer anything better than the sword and greaves I got in the first campaign... Better chainmail If you already have the chainmail that gives you leg and arm protection then no. But having lots of money gets you a slightly better ending
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Nov 5, 2019 11:45
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every fight that involves me successfully feinting is immediately countered by a successful recovery by the enemy. when do i actually attack them?
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Nov 8, 2019 02:14
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Verviticus posted:every fight that involves me successfully feinting is immediately countered by a successful recovery by the enemy. when do i actually attack them? If you don't get attacked you can recovery with a 100% chance, that goes for you and the enemy. The best time to attack is after they miss attacking you.
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Nov 8, 2019 02:27
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Verviticus posted:every fight that involves me successfully feinting is immediately countered by a successful recovery by the enemy. when do i actually attack them? If you're substantially more skilled than them, any time you like. If you aren't, then after they're so exhausted they can't lift their sword any more.
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Nov 8, 2019 02:29
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Verviticus posted:every fight that involves me successfully feinting is immediately countered by a successful recovery by the enemy. when do i actually attack them? There are two general types of fights, the timed ones where you rotate out and the infinite turn ones. I'm assuming you're at parity or a disadvantage to the foe because if you're stronger you can probably just stab or bash them to death. For the timed ones you should either resign yourself to defending, or you should wait until ther enemy misses and then feint/attack. There's a chance to fail recovery if you're under attack, and feints count, so sometimes the enemy will miss and then fail recovery and you can get a couple hits in. For infinite turn ones try to tire them out and not die. Burning some morale here is way better then dying so don't try too hard to keep it all. Note that after a miss most enemies will recover so you can get a turn out of defensive stance after a miss usually.
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Nov 8, 2019 07:04
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